


it's only fair (that it's no one's fault)

by orphan_account



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-23
Updated: 2014-08-23
Packaged: 2018-02-14 08:22:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2184648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You were friends first. Don’t act like this. It’s childish. You’re acting childish, Brendon.</p><p>He knows. He knows that. He’s acting childish. He thinks maybe he’s allowed this. It’s only fair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's only fair (that it's no one's fault)

They were friends first.

Brendon tells himself that, counting the cracks on the sidewalk, looking down at the ground like there’s anything worth looking at there. And that’s what other people say, too. You were friends first. Don’t act like this. It’s childish. You’re acting childish, Brendon.

He knows. He knows that. He’s acting childish. He thinks maybe he’s allowed this. It’s only fair.

Ryan calls him, of course. Of course he does. Brendon glances down at the phone, the name, feels it warm and vibrating in his hand, and he almost picks up.

...

“It’s not a break-up. You were never together.”

That’s only fair.

...

The night was warm and the air tasted like salt and Ryan’s bottom lip tasted like heaven. Brendon couldn't help himself. Never could. Never could, never could. And Ryan kept kissing him like breathing wasn't important, an afterthought, and Brendon’s heart swelled three times its size.

That was when he knew. Probably.

It took Ryan longer to figure it out. Probably.

Brendon said, “What took you so long?” and laughed and laughed, like it was funny. And Ryan laughed too, like Brendon told a joke. There was sand in between his fingers when he clutched onto Brendon’s hair and he didn't say sorry. Brendon closed his eyes and could still see stars.

...

Ryan smiled at him, every time Brendon looked at him for too long, every time the silence stretched on, and Ryan’s foot nudged along his calf when no one was looking or paying attention, and Ryan’s hand would sometimes blindly find his in the dark, and when Ryan kissed him it felt like something yawning open in his chest. And whose fault is it? Brendon always thought it was his. Making something out of nothing. When he was kissed, and he closed his eyes shut so tightly that he could see sparks, maybe he had just been imagining things.

But Ryan’s hands told a different story, one with less editing. And Brendon fell for it. Of course he did.

...

“Whose fault was it?”

Brendon shrugs, shoving food in his mouth, so he won’t have to speak. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It was amicable. It was logical. The best decision for everyone involved. And that feels like a lie, so Brendon doesn’t say it, he just thinks it, like maybe it will be true if he wills it to be.

Spencer eyes him, carefully, quietly. “I guess it doesn’t matter.”

Because they know. And that’s easier than not knowing, which is easier than guessing. Brendon shrugs again, makes some kind of non-committal grunt. It’s not a break-up. They were never together. He has to remember that. He’s making something out of nothing again. It’s not a break-up. It’s just the natural progression of their lives. Two intersecting lines that meet once and then never again. Heading off into different directions. It’s only fair.

...

Brendon’s stomach quivered, and he bit his lip to keep quiet, and Ryan lowered himself down to snort a line off the sparse trail of body hair leading down below where his boxers ended. It wasn’t erotic but it was, and Brendon watched every quick movement, Ryan licking up what he left, making obscene noises. Brendon already did his, and his blood was thrumming, every nerve on fire.

Ryan said, “I don’t want to leave this hotel,” and Brendon nodded, his teeth making red indents on his bottom lip.

He said, “Let’s not.” Never leave. Brendon never wanted to leave. He never wanted to leave that bed, that hotel room, Seattle. Everything felt more real there. Ryan’s hands found their proper holds, his fingers fitting into the curve of Brendon’s body. He kissed a wet trail up Brendon’s chest and Brendon looked up at the ceiling and tried not to fall apart.

“I never want to leave,” Ryan said, and his hands were shaking. “We’re never leaving.”

He said it so sure and so true that Brendon thought he was being serious. “Okay.”

“I want to fuck you all night.” Ryan’s teeth scraped Brendon’s collarbone and Brendon could feel his whole body shake, the ceiling rolling into the back of his head when his eyes shut.

“Okay,” he said.

And whose fault was it?

...

Ryan calls.

It’s only fair.

...

Brendon kisses girls, for a while. He tests it out. It makes him angry to know that he still likes kissing girls. It makes him angry to know that he hasn’t gotten any of it figured out. So some people have exceptions. That happens. He hates that Ryan is his exception to anything. He wants Ryan to be gone, out of his head, a fragment of a memory sitting on the wall of his brain, but Ryan is still everywhere. His exception.

So he fucks girls, and is disappointed to find out he still likes girls, then more disappointed to find out he still likes pussy. He’d thought that Ryan could at least give him something. Ryan could’ve at least been Brendon’s big gay crisis, but instead, he’s just a fucking exception. And Brendon learns nothing.

He doesn’t know what he was to Ryan. And so he learns nothing.

...

They were friends first.

Brendon tells himself that.

But that’s not the truth, either.

...

They leave Seattle, eventually. The anti-climatic end to their short life there.

And eventually they leave each other, too. And Brendon supposes that’s fair.

...

“It’s a bad batch,” Ryan said, his hands shaking on their own accord, his skin white, whiter than Brendon ever saw him. “It happens.”

“I don’t want it to happen to you.” That was the most frustrating thing, that Ryan always spoke like his life was a story, like he was a statistic. Bad batches happen to people in stories. People in stories get shaken up and roughed up and they become villains, but Brendon never wanted that, not for Ryan or anyone, but Ryan was determined to become part of a story. A head full of words, a life full of things from stories. That was him.

Ryan shook his head and he looked like the movement might make him throw up. “I’m not going to die.”

It was the first time Brendon considered that Ryan was a liar.

...

Eventually, Ryan stops calling.

...

People step around the subject with him, like it’s something too personal to talk about. But nothing is personal when your life story is available in three clicks or less. Nothing is secret.

“How are you doing? You know. Considering?”

Considering what, Brendon never asks. Of course he knows. Considering the break-up. The lack-thereof. The amicable split, the friendly separation. It’s not a break-up if they were never together. Brendon forgets that, sometimes.

“I’m doing great.” And his teeth flash white like a snarl, and he doesn’t know how to keep it all in, because his chest might cave in, because he might turn into a monster. “We’re all doing great.” Except that’s not true, but Brendon doesn’t check in, doesn’t even try to call or text. He has an imagination of his own and he knows Ryan well enough. He’ll go to the funeral when Ryan ends up killing himself. He’ll say Ryan was a good friend, even though he wasn’t, because Ryan was never his friend.

But no one really knows that.

So it’s easy to tell the story.

...

Ryan’s fingernails dug into Brendon’s hips while he fucked him, fast and hard like Brendon wanted it but never knew how to say it out loud. Ryan knew these things. Had an intuition. He knew Brendon’s body like it was an extension of his own and that was part of the problem.

And afterwards, Brendon collapsed on the right side of the bed, and Ryan stared up at the ceiling while Brendon tried to look in his eyes, and that was a red flag that Brendon never saw waving.

“Could we ever go back to being friends?” Brendon asked, and he didn’t know why he asked. An assurance. He already felt the sand slipping through his fingers, counting the time away.

Ryan looked at him. “We were never friends.” And he leaned over, pushing his hands through Brendon’s hair, kissing him full of intent, his tongue sliding along Brendon’s bottom lip, and Brendon never got to think about what Ryan meant by that. But maybe that was the point. A distraction.

And Ryan kept kissing him, kept kissing him, his hands sliding to the back of his neck, and he said, “God, I still want you,” like it was a surprise, like he couldn’t understand it himself.

Brendon closed his eyes and smelled Keltie’s perfume, imagined for a second them fucking, the same way Ryan fucked him, the same way he kissed him.

Ryan wanted so desperately to have a story to tell. Brendon wondered if he was just a side character.

And even still.

...

So it’s not a break-up if you were never together.

Brendon writes that down in the margin of his life. It’s not a break-up. It’s a part of the story. But Brendon doesn’t want to give Ryan an ending, doesn’t want to give Ryan a resolution. He takes the steps. Ryan stops calling but still Brendon deletes the number. It’s not a break-up if they were never together. It wasn’t a friendship because they were never friends.

And Brendon won’t let Ryan finish his story.

...

“I never want to leave this bed.”

Brendon kissed him and kissed him and kissed him, and his whole brain was humming, his whole life narrowed down to that room, that bed, that city. He could live his whole life in the space between the sheets and the comforter. He could.

Ryan’s nails scraped down Brendon’s chest. He said, “I love you.”

And Brendon didn’t flinch at all. Just said, “Okay.”

And Ryan said, “God, I fucking love you,” and pressed his teeth into the curve of Brendon’s throat. “It’s fucking stupid how much I love you.”

It didn’t seem like a lie. It didn’t feel like one. And Brendon kept kissing him. He said, “I love you, too.” Like it wasn’t a big deal. Like his heart didn’t catch in his throat.

“Good,” Ryan sighed, and softer again, “good.”

...

Maybe it wasn’t Brendon’s fault.


End file.
